turboplanner

At one extreme there are people who jump off cliffs in wing suits. Or try to climb Everest. You cant stop it.

As I mentioned to Facthunter, no one has to, but if they hurt someone they pay.

 

 

The risk definition can be altered until you ALLOW nothing much of a real nature , to be done by anyone.. I would suggest we are already seeing this effect.

Why would you be allowing things anyway? That would make you responsible for the outcome. The government doesn't even register your new car now, the dealer does it.

 

You can't be required to not die. Ie Guarantee to live just so someone "dependent" on you is OK.

No one is saying that at all.

 

However, your dependents have a right to expect your support until they get better/reach a majority etc. When someone takes away that expectation by killing you the law says they have to pay for that expectation. (That's not the full version of it, but it shows how the principle works.

 

Previously your wife and children wold be left destitute.

 

That "requirement' to satisfy allows a world that most would not recognize or wish to live in. as there's no Defined limit that it operates up to.

If you're talking about prescriptive regulations where the State took over your thinking for you and specified this safety equipment, or a 3 ft high safety fence 10' back from the track before giving the track a "ticket" yes that went around 1984, and we got to do anything we liked provided we could do it safely. That's how AUF got into the air. You're looking at it all back to front.

 

Like you say" that is enough". The goal posts keep getting moved. Zero road deaths etc. Not achievable and a misleading concept being used for an excuse to impose unlimited restrictions on any thing that particular "PUSH" sees as undesirable. or doesn't interest them.

The goalposts were always moving. My family were the last in the district to sell the horse team and buy a tractor. If you've been ignoring each development in self administration for the last 30 years, sure you're going to be totally confused about how you're supposed to behave now, even if you decide to set up a sausage sizzle at Bunnings. Whose fault is that?

 

Zero road deaths is a target to aim at. Just a reminder that Victorian Speedway has operated for over 50 years with zero driver deaths. It's harder to achieve that on the roads because the compliance and enforcement team isn't watching all behaviour at all times, the tracks are consistently safe with no oncoming traffic, trees etc. but there's an old saying "If you don't have a target, how are you going to hit the bullseye?" Yes, there are PUSHES in the wrong direction, but that's still part of the old prescriptive ways which we do use for our road laws. In Self Administration active participants are usually making the guidelines and so they usually reflect state of the art.

 

 

How far do you go in deciding what is risky. and (how dare you or anyone) make such a decision in absolute terms?.. Especially to not even allow it as a discussion point? You can't actually stop it either. What do we do as a severe punishment. The DEATH penalty? Nev

As far as I know there is no legal definition for risky; no need for it because what IS defined is a precedent case for negligence.

 

So it is absolute.

 

No one cares what you are doing until such time as it interferes with, or hurts, someone else, then there is a simple line in the sand.

 

Punishment can go as high as imprisonment for Manslaughter, so can add up to a lot of years.

 

Punishment can also be monetary, claimed by the person you hurt.

 

No you can't stop it, but you don't need to stop it, it strangles itself, so you don't have to pay all those expensive inspectors.

 

 

And Reg travelled home every night in it. There are some amazing stories about those trips to work every day when things went wrong.

 

 

The lawyers chase the money. There's little point in winning a case if there's no ability to Pay. Insurance pays out a big amount... then... Collectively all the "Insured pay" a bit more one way or another. It IS the Courts who decide what the compensation is or some times an out of court agreed figure where more of it goes to the injured . Whether the amount paid is followed by upping the cover or vise versa is a mute point. What is important is there is a process of compensation in Place as a way of addressing a definite need.. The victim is usually an innocent party. Balance all this against a "right" to do risky things (IF you affect no one else) which I tend to uphold. and to be able to decide when you die If life is no longer attractive..Nev

Tort lawyers sometimes do package multiple claims into class actions, however our industry/sport is such a tiny sliver of business that it blows along under its own steam.

 

A fatality claim is around $1 million outlay for the Plaintiff ($2 million if he loses) vs about $3 million for the Defendant if he loses. (These are just ballpark figures, not based to any actual costs). The Defendant's estate (if he has departed the scene) will have house, assets, life Insurance or PL Insurance, so most claims aren't started on an economic basis, but on a need for the Plaintiff, such as cost of bringing up children and paying the bills without a breadwinner. The Plaintiff has to justify the claim before the Court, so they can hardly say "We went for him because he's got money."

 

There is no "right" to do risky things, even by yourself, depending on any dependants, so it isn't a balance or discussion point.

 

For example if you go out by yourself and decide to do some low level aerobatics by yourself and kill yourself and your wife is aged 47, she has to find a way to replace your income to pay off the mortgage, maintain a car, buy the groceries, and feed and educate the children over the next 40 years. So she sues your estate.

 

 

"The other problem here is who decides what "doing the right thing " is? "

 

We all know who.

 

Bureaucrats.

 

spacesailor

In shooting it's volunteer shooters

 

In RA flying its the builders and pilots and HGFA/RAA

 

Same with any Self administered sport or business

 

Bureaucrats didn't work out even in the prescriptive era.

 

 

And in other news.....a popular law firm followed the emergency vehicles and has assisted Farmer Dave of Maclagan in launching legal proceedings against the ADF for the mental anguish suffered because his beer was no longer ice cold after the power was interupted.

 

That case was dissmissed when the judge said "Anyone who suffers mental anguish because his beer isn't cold deserves to be certified.

 

On the other hand if the loss or power killed 250,000 chickens in the nearby broiler shed the ADF would be out of pocket.

 

The best air show I've ever been to was at East Sale, well out into country Victoria and away from the hierarchy. we were allowed much closer to the runway than at Avalon, so the vision was great, and a sequence of fighters started, each one coming in low from the east, pulling up into a loop and departing to the west all were pretty much the same to watch. The Mustang climbed higher than the older aircraft it followed, a vampire flew higher than the Mustang and so on until the FA18 which went vertical until it became a speck and then came down and departed. It came in again and did the same thing followed by some lower moves, then it disappeared. The sequence was too short so I started scanning each end of the runway expecting something else. The crowd had turned their backs and were happily chatting along with my wife and kids. Finally I saw a little speck in the distance right down on the deck I warned my wife, but she hadn't turned when it went past with a sound like an acetylene torch backfiring multiple times but at about 10 times the noise factor. The kids screamed, my wife started crying, and most of the other women were the same along the strip. For me it was the best display I'd ever seen, because all the others had been sub sonic and a bit of a let down. When the pilot flew off the end of the strip he went over a market garden, breaking all the hot house glass. The ADF replaced the glass, and announced they would not be doing that sort of display again.

 

 

Yes. In fact I had two friends who were confined to wheelchairs. Doesn't change my views on a crap insurance system.

Well if you then go up to the next level where they also can't use their arms to lift themselves, and in some cases require a respirator operating 24/7, you're at Quadriplegic, and I'd just about guarantee that not one of these would go out and blow all their money. And it's not the crap insurance system, in fact nothing to do with insurance, it's a Court awarding payment for damages from the Defendant to the Plaintiff. The Defendant's Insurance Company simply makes a payment as it is instructed.

 

 

Turbs, you didn't remotely address Jabiru7252's suggestion. The thing he said and illustrated is that great big lump sums are bad news for some people. A quadriplegic, for example, needs a long term income stream and not get it all in a lump sum, which is what is right in line with what Jabiru7252 said.

 

Try to avoid doing a fantasy rewrite on a posting in order to attack your fantasy. It's called the straw man technique and it is nasty.

I didn’t need to address his suggestion; after calling the person who lost the money a slob he went off on his own tangent.

 

The Court makes a decision between two arguing parties. That’s what it’s job is and has always been limited to.

 

There’s no fantasy rewrite, no straw man technique, That’s what happens in the process. There is no government involvement and no welfare involvement.

 

The defendant's obligations to the plaintiff cease as soon as the designated sum has been paid.

 

The situation is exactly the same as when an employee receives his paycheck. It's his decision what he does with it whether that be taking it home to the wife or blowing it on gambling.

 

It's not being nasty telling it like it is. What is nasty is when people decide to ignore their obligations and don't bother insuring.

 

Where someone is incapacitated to the point where they can't make logical decision, there are processes whereby others can be given Power of Attorney to manage the money, one of these being State Trustees, bearing in mind that a seven year old child will need to be cared for for 80 years. However those processes are nothing to do with public liability.

 

 

Uber has just announced it will be operating passenger aircraft out of Melbourne Airport by 2023.

 

The intent is to take passengers from the airport to "near where they live".

 

The suggestion is that could be the roofs of large shipping centres.

 

The aircraft is a 6 seat (with minute luggage compartment behind the rear seats.)

 

The design is electric with what looks like two vertical props for up down and hover, and a wing, so presumably the props will rotate 90 degrees for travel.

 

The aircraft will have a pilot for the first two or three years while data is being logged but is then expected to be autonomous.

 

The service is being developed in conjunction with CASA.

 

The information comes from several news sources this morning.

 

It's interesting that in the automotive industry we've been told to shut up about autonomous cars, and expect suitable algorithms to take about 30 years to develop, after the increasingly disastrous recent efforts, but those car makers are still showing their electric concept vehicles complete with radiator grilles and engine compartments, and there are people out there touting electric motors as "maintenance free" who obviously have never owned a hair dryer, but who knows, someone could make a breakthrough at any time!

 

 

Report from RAA, Flight Design MC, Meekatharra, 3-6-19

 

"At 4500ft descending for circuit within 10nm approx. of the airport the aircraft experienced fuel starvation. The pilot initiated a glide approach and landed uneventfully in a paddock. A review of navigational flight planning, fuel management and in flight fuel logging principles was undertaken with pilot in addition to confirming the compliance requirements for the flight. As a result of the investigation the aircraft has been removed from service until a fuel calibration check and fuel system inspection has been completed by an appropriately qualified maintenance authority. Further the pilot has been requested to undertake a navigational planning and flight competency review with the local flight training school including completion of an In flight adjustable propeller endorsement required to operate this aircraft."

 

Another rubbish report from RAA, the purpose of reports is for other pilots to learn from previous incidents.

 

Why was the fuel in the aircraft not reaching the engine?, I guess we will never know. Follow-up report ? Can't recall ever seeing one.

The circumspect nature of this report was possibly as far as an independent organisation can legally go.

 

Several people have admitted cross country flying with no experience in Fuel management and inflight logging, flight planning for navigation, fuel burn, W&B in recent times so they are tasks quite a few could start learning.

 

Fuel calibration, and method of confirming tanks full is another subject where at least one aircraft with skinny wings and being used for cross country could do with development of a reliable procedure.

 

CASA dumped endorsements, not us, so it's not at all surprising that someone could be flying a C/S aircraft with no knowledge other than take off in fin,and set fine on downwind.

 

So while I agree with you that it's almost criminal that we don't get ATSB reports and MacArthur Job standard analysis any more, there is plenty we could get our teeth into, rather than a pilot excuse himself by saying defensively: "Not me!; I never touch the red knob!"

 

 

Many years ago I knew a lazy slob that got paid out big time after an accident. The payout was for future medical expenses for the injuries, pain and suffering, lost wages bla bla bla. This loser blew the money on booze and drugs and other rubbish. Now has nothing and blames everybody but himself. Huge insurance payouts are BS in my opinion and the system needs to change.

Have you ever seen a quadriplegic? They need full time medical staff 24/7, year after year until they die.

 

You think the wife and children of a deceased are going to blow the kids’ education and weekly expenses on booze?

 

I think the world has just passed some people by.

 

 

I think we can take it that the collective brain of the Illuminati has not been able to understand this new mixture controller, based on the reversion to stories of fantasy and excitement.

 

 

There must have been more than 50? Serious accidents since the RAA insurance started, how many pay outs ?

 

If it is quite a few how is the premium so low, if not many or none why is that?

Most of those accidents were unremarkable.

 

For PL to kick in someone has to have a duty of care, and the injured party must be able to prove that duty of care was breached.

 

If a passenger suffers a broken leg in a forced landing caused by the pilot forgetting to turn the fuel tap on, that may well be a case, but when the passenger realises that if he doesn't win he may have to pay the defendant's legal costs (even with his own lawyer's no win no fee deal), and he only heard about the tap through hearsay, the most likely outcome is that it won't go ahead.

 

In other cases the defendant settles out of court, so no one gets to hear the details or payout.

 

In other cases plaintiffs, even if they have a good case just don't want to go through the legal trauma and foot the bills themselves.

 

I know of one RA crash where the relatives just wanted to forget the whole thing so took no action

 

In other cases there's a lawsuit, but people don't listen to advice and the case goes off half cocked and the defendant gets away with it. I know of one case where a so called aviation expert advised the plaintiff to sue through non-PL channels and accused a person who had not breached any duty of care, losing the case, while the person who had breached his duty of care, in a very simple case had his estate left intact. There was another where an Association fought a PL claim using its non-PL directors and officers insurance, and quickly ran out of money and had to negotiate a settlement using members money.

 

Of the cases I was involved in, one was an $850,000 payout when someone failed to use a fire extinguisher in the correct manner, another failing to fit a light outside a toilet door in a car park, another failing to advise a plaintiff that he had the right to sue when he entered the premises, and subsequently losing because the promoter failed to connect two safety fence cables together in the layout recommended by the cable manufacturer. All simple things to understand after the event.

 

 

I would have no argument paying fees direct to the relevant organisations who own the airfields. What I object to is Avdata charging exorbitant commissions, call it what you like.....where the parent organisation gets no benefit from Avdata towards its airfields, and Aviators get ripped off.

 

Cheers,

 

Jack.

To achieve that someone has to start the ball rolling with a better policy which is not based on a company hiring staff to collect these fees and putting a company markup on their costs.

 

Inevitably this is exponentially more expensive than leaving money in a tin, but here we are, the bastards didn't pay when they had the chance to pay a nominal amount, they artfully dodged the more expensive methods used by Councils, and now many more people will be paying because once the corporate system of money collection proved more cost effective than the Council staff method, the Company appears to have gone out and promoted its income producing service.

 

 

Frankly I think RAAus wouldn't be serving the membership correctly, and could well be considered negligent, if they don't maintain our insurance at 'industry standard' levels.

Correct; as we know all insurance companies set premiums based on the risk history, and predictions, so premiums are effectively set by the court cases and their results.

 

In the case of a death, the dependants of any person killed need to be maintained at the level provided for by the deceased. and they need to be maintained until children have finished their education, and elderly relatives have died. The cost of doing this goes up each year with the cost of living.

 

In the case of an injury, if there is nerve damage to a limb, it's expensive to fix, if limbs are lost, prosthesis and rehabilitation has increasing costs, and if the victim becomes a quadriplegic then house modifications, 24 hour care x 3 shifts for the expected life of the victim, quality of life costs etc can often increase.

 

Regardless of the above, lawyers costs continue to spiral up because of their costs in paying the multiple people involved, rentals etc.

 

It seems to me there are a lot less cases than there were a decade ago, and in that time a quadriplegic case, with all of the above, including both sets of lawyers if you lose a case seems to have gone up from about $9 million to about $13-14 million or about 5.5% flat per year.

 

From my past experience with cases, becoming a Defendant is a life changing event for the five years or so their actions are under scrutiny apart from the guilt they feel, and the one saving grace they have with Insurance is that at least they are not going to lose their home and assets (provided they didn't under-insure).

 

So if the extra premium is $500.00 for 50 hours, that's just $10.00 every time you go flying.

 

Just bear in mind that the legal definition of a breach of duty of care, is an ACCIDENTAL breach, so it's not something you can plan not to do, other than to be qualified to do what you're doing and up to date with your training.

 

 

Interesting discussion, but one aspect not raised is multiple cover for the same "territory".

 

Individual pilots carry insurance, our club is required to have $20m cover for the bit we lease from the local council, which also has the whole airport covered for $20m. Isn't that overinsurance?

No, quite often each has committed a breach of their duty of care including the land owner.

 

 

I meant $500 premium for a year, but can't they refuse to pay out under various conditions?

Every Insurance Policy has conditions, and every Insurance Company will refuse to pay if you break those conditions.

 

 

Gosh HIC, "total protection from any mishap that may happen for $20 "? Where from?

I think you were pretending it would cost you $500.00 per FLIGHT.

 

 

Best not comment on McDonalds - as for the outdoor activates mentioned;

 

My generation did not let cost dictate our pastimes/hobbies, we just scrimp & saved to get where we could, which may have meant never getting past entry level but at least we got there. Risk was rarely mentioned even when being trained to avoid it. Now the perception of risk prevents many before they even get a taste. For those that persist the cost of insurance can be crippling.

 

No matter where you go now, evidence of insurance is likely to be demanded - On behalf of NSW State Gov. I used to manage a large outdoor venue (developed using tax payers $$) my department eventually hiked the requirement for users public liability so high, two clubs never came back after 10 years patronage (both eventually folded because they could not find a cost effective venue), many others just did not pursue their booking enquiry - eventually the venue closed through lack of patronage.

In Speedway, which could be a risky business at the time, we partnered with a large Insurance Broker, so they got inside information on and access to all our tracks and operations. We cleaned up a few things and finished up being ask to do the track inspections on US tracks. The costs became manageable and we continued on.

 

Waterslide parks around Australia closed down in the 1980s due to neck/spinal injuries which are the most expensive of all. They were soon opening again with employees at the top and bottom to ensure the departure area was clear before the next person started down (risk removal), then layout were changed so the top person could see all of the departure area and maybe today they do it electronically with no employees.

 

 

If the sort of people that feel a fund raising BBQ is "high risk" are making rules for the rest of us then we have a problem.

State Governments will still step in to safety issues on a political basis, and they stepped in on volunteer catering at a time when food poisoning requiring hospitalisation had reached four million Australians a year. At that time food poisoning in the USA was hospitalising 40 million Americans.

 

Some of the people hospitalised died. From memory that was in the early 1990s

 

However, Food Handling Courses sprang up all over the country and before long virtually all of them were back in business achieving the same health standards as shops.

 

The other problem here is who decides what "doing the right thing " is? As long as your activity has no negative impact on anyone innocent party, I would say you are doing the right thing,

If no one is being injured or likely to be injured you may well be right.

 

but other people have decided for me using 5 x 5 matrices. As I've said before, the training, quality, and safety industries are just parasites sucking the life out of every host organisation they can find. We did fine without them before and would still do fine without them now.

This is the confusion you always introduce; you apparently don't agree with the people you work for. There's nothing we can do about that, they are self regulating and entitled to manage their organisation.

 

 

You just tried to tell us we weren't a "cotton wool society".

The best safety action is risk removal, where you remove the reliance on a human to comply, such as a roll cage in a race car. Removing the chance of concussion or breaking a limb is in the same category. That's not the same as a sociological action, such as not allowing children into playgrounds.

 

 

A lot of kid play grounds have never reopened - fewer and fewer young people are hiking, flying, diving,boating, horse riding, etc etc etc - as in all things, there are benefits & losses. On balance it would seem to me we (in the west) have become increasingly risk avers - a bad think for our species ie a net loss.

 

I think the concept of "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" may just about sum my feelings up.

Just about every McDonalds in Australia has a playground, so that added to the numbers.

 

Councils got rid of the log swings, which could fracture a toddler's skull, laid rubberised base throughout the playground, replaced rigid arm swings with light chain, and wooden seats with frangible plastic. Our local council now dots these around what they call Pocket Parks, so about ten of these where there used to be about three.

 

I haven't seen any drop in hiking, but flying, diving, boating, horse riding are mostly restricted by finance choice; A cousin of mine is currently sharing photos of himself and wife lounging around Sheraton Mirage Port Douglas gold course up close to a croc. They are just making different choices.

 

 

Your poorly-disguised anti Jabiru figures are quite different from what I am experiencing in real life turbs. I reckon my Jab engine ( 700 hours now with no problems) is running at less than half the cost of a Rotax. I will be able to replace it at 1000 hours with a new engine and still have savings over a 912. That's if I choose to do this, what if it continues to run just fine?

 

And I agree with Nev about burping the Rotax in the morning. It takes quite a long time. Sure, it's not a big thing, but its another thing to remember. Rotax mandatory replacements ( rubber goods ) are a big thing, and quite expensive, and it is painful for cheapskates like me to throw away good condition things because of orders from the other side of the world.

 

Rotax are also hostile at the idea of owner-maintenance. Try comparing their written stuff with Jabiru's. It's not even in the same ball-park.

 

I don't think that I am anti-Rotax, I just flew one across half the country and it was good. But they are expensive and complex things.

I specifically said my figures didn't relate to real life.

 

The point I was making is that Prime Cost is just one of the costs in total cost of life.

 

Many people are put off by the product with the highest cost and buy a cheaper alternative, but often pay dearly for it in the long run.

 

So just bagging an engine because it is "dear" is misleading.

 

Is this "700 hour" engine the one which overheated?

 

 

Its called living in fear (of legal retribution) ergo cotton wool society

The irony is that today, if you are doing the right thing, less accidents occur and you are covered by insurance.

 

A lot of high risk industries which were closed down in the 1980s are back in business again, for example waterside parks and the fund raising BBQ.